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For Cancer patients, for kids suffering from Seizures, and for so many others, safe, legal, access to Medical Marijuana is a matter of life and death. Please call the whitehouse comment line at (202) 456-1111 and ask that the President have Marijuana removed from Schedule 1. Ask everyone you know to call them too, and to keep calling until he does it.

I'm a Scientist with a strong interest in Cancer research. The clinical evidence of the value of Marijuana as a life saving medicine is now so strong that the need to remove Marijuana from Schedule 1 has become a moral imperative. Google Medical Marijuana testimonials. Google Medical Marijuana Cancer Patient Testimonials.

This weekend over 3,000 Americans died, in pain, of Cancer. Every single day, 1,500 Americans die of Cancer after suffering horribly. it. Every single minute another American dies of Cancer. Every American Cancer patient deserves the right to have safe, legal, and economical access to Medical Marijuana. Every single one.

Americans who need Medical Marijuana shouldn't be used as "Political Footballs" Please call the Whitehouse comment line at (202) 456-1111 and ask that the President take immediate action to remove Marijuana from Schedule 1 so American Physicians in all 50 states can prescribe it.

Oncologists have know it for more than a quarter of a Century that Marijuana is a "wonder drug" for helping Cancer patients
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The American Society of Clinical Oncologists wants Marijuana removed from Schedule 1. So does the American Medical Association, the professional society of all Physicians. A strong majority of Americans want Physicians in all 50 states to be able to prescribe Medical Marijuana. So do their Physicians., Cancer patients can't wait.

The need to immediately, completely, legalize Marijuana throughout the world is one of the most pressing moral issues of our time, because of its medical benefits and because of the damage prohibition causes to America and to the world.

Complete legalization is critical -- its vital that there aren't "strings" or "hoops" that Cancer patients and others who need Medical Marijuana are forced to jump through
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"Charlottes web" is NOT the solution. Cancer patients and people who suffer from chronic pain need THC, not just CBD. The "Berkeley study", where 96% of stage 4 Cancer patients who had a wide variety of Cancers achieved remission, used high dose Medical Marijuana oil, 72% THC, 28% CBD, 1 gram/day (oral) over a 90 day course of treatment. It was a small study, and not placebo controlled, but those kinds of results are clearly remarkable, have been widely reported on in the press, and demand the need for immediate large scale clinical trials.

More and more present and former members of law enforcement agree about the need to end prohibition, and have formed a rapidly expanding group of current and former undercover cops, FBI, DEA, prosecutors and Judges, from all over the world, called

LEAP -- Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

because they've seen the damage prohibition causes to America and the world.

But as a Scientist with a strong interest in Cancer research, I feel even more strongly about the need to ensure that no Cancer patient is denied it, because I'm so impressed with its benefits for Cancer patients.

I urge everyone reading this to PLEASE call and email the Attorney General, the press, Congress and the President today.

Medical Marijuana helps with Alzheimer's, Autism, Cancer, seizures, PTSD and chronic pain, and has helped many Americans, including many veterans, stop using Alcohol, and hard drugs, both legal and illegal ones.

Every minute an American dies of Cancer.

Every 19 minutes an American dies of a prescription drug overdose.

Many vets become addicted to prescription opiates and die from them.

NOBODY has ever died from smoking too much pot.

Cancer patients are seeing remarkable results using high dose Medical Marijuana oil, in many cases achieving complete remission, even for stage 4 cancers -- there are many excellent articles on the web, and videos on youtube with patient's personal stories about their experiences with it -- and every Cancer patient that uses Marijuana to ease their suffering benefits greatly from doing so.

It is immoral to leave Marijuana illegal, for anyone, for even a second longer.

For Cancer patients, its a matter of life and death.

Cancer patients can't wait.

Medical Marijuana has an unmatched safety profile, and for people who suffer from so many diseases, of so many kinds, its a medical miracle -- and the scientific evidence behind it is rock solid.

For Cancer patients, Medical Marijuana encourages apoptosis and autophagy of Cancer cells, while leaving normal cells untouched, is anti-angigogenic, anti-proliferative, and is anti-angiogenic.

Its also synergistic with chemotherapy and radiation therapy, making both more effective.
For many Cancer patients its meant the difference between life and death.

For everyone else, its a far safer alternative to Alcohol, and infinitely safer than Cigarettes.

Either take them off the market too, or legalize Marijuana right now.

2016 is too far away, Its too long to wait. Every year we lose more Americans to Cancer than died in WWII.

Between now and the 2016 elections, roughly 1 MILLION Americans will die of Cancer.

I am in my 9th year as a math teacher at Berkeley High and my 25th year as a math educator. I have one child at Berkeley High and two at Willard. I know the stories intimately of all the teachers who speak up in this article, as their colleague, union representative, and neighbor. I will gladly vouch for the validity of their stories and am exceptionally proud of their willingness to speak up. The atmosphere at Berkeley High is so poisonous that even mentioning Peer Assistance and Review critically to community members can earn a teacher a letter of unprofessional conduct. A letter of unprofessional conduct can lead to dismissal. Indeed, I may be retaliated against for writing this post.
As someone who has had years of experience in curriculum writing and teacher training, I can guarantee that the pedagogical advice and support garnered from the PAR experience will not create a better classroom for our children. In fact, it will produce a classroom with a frightened, uninspired teacher trying to micromanage student voices to please a relatively uninformed and inexperienced evaluator. I don't think any parents want that for their children. I certainly don't want it for mine.
Masha Albrecht, Berkeley High Math Department

From across the SF Bay, I'd like to chip in that SFUSD is noted for using PAR in an unfair, irrational, agist, racist and sexist fashion. Only a complete analysis of each and every case, which would require both union and district to release all relevant data and documents, would allow an impartial committee to garner a complete understanding of how abusive this system has become. It is shameful and actionable. If peaceful action is not allowed and reasonable changes made then non-peaceful action will result and heads will roll. I would hasten to add that the means used to evaluate the educational systems provide a great deal of data on student test results broken down by teacher, school, district, local, state and national regions. Teacher performance is also one of the main factors "looked at." But no where are there results, publicly available, for the performance of site managers. This despite the fact that they can impact a school greatly for better or worse. It is time for teachers to take over an run school sites. Heads should roll and teachers should take back their sites. It can be done.

Masha, thank you for your post. While I have not been referred to BPAR - I have been disciplined for arbitrary things by BUSD admin, like getting a student a bottle of water, and applying for a VP position. Dr. Evans is going to have to take this issue seriously and work with teachers and administrator to improve the tone of the work environment at the high schools so that ALL students can get a quality education.

Smoking it would just get you high and have a limited benefit. You should injest it in the form of concentrated oil. Go to www.pheonixtears.ca for everything you need to know. It's free info. Cures the most serious cancers in 3 months for about 2000 bucks total when you make it yourself. Not hard to do. Just keep it low key so you don't get arrested as it is still illegal to grow it in Canada. 2 or 3 Indica strain plants is all you need.

My child was in Mr. Crowell's class. I can say that he was a fine teacher. Not great, but pretty good. I can also say that one of the parents who commented negatively about him on this thread approached me multiple times as that she was soliciting people to speak ill of Mr. Crowell. I find it funny that she says she heard parents over and over complaining about him. Perhaps she was thinking of herself bugging everyone to file complaints? I can also say that I heard she got the school principal to start soliciting complaints from parents. Not sure if it is true or not, because I tried to stay out of it, but it was difficult. Most people tried to ignore it, but as you can see , it was relentless. There are some parents that will never be happy, and make it their life mission to make sure everyone around them pays the price. I wish Mr. Crowell well. I'm sorry he was treated so badly. I wish more of us who liked him had stood up for him.

As a former BUSD substitute teacher (2002-2008) who is now a Montessori teacher, I will share one of my main questions about BUSD and other school districts, and one reason I did not get a Single Subject or Multi Subject but went towards Montessori instead. Why would teachers, who have just spent 4 years in college plus 2 or more in teacher training, need so much extra training? Why all the Staff Development? Didn't these people just finish developing? As a BHS grad (class of '79) and parent of 2 former BHS students, I confirm that I have found BUSD to be restrictive, reductive, and far, far behind the curve of current best practices. For example, why is the culture of cutting class so accepted at BHS? Why are kids who are neither jocks nor AP kids made to feel that there is something wrong with them? Realizing that Berkeley Unified is not only racist but ageist and anti-intellectual as well is so jarring, but folks, so true. The lack of teachers of color, combined with the fact that virtually every single custodian and lunch server IS of color, has bothered me for years.

Mr. Turney's comments really made me feel sad. How sad that the staff is so hurtful to one another and clearly divided. It really shows you that when people start pointing fingers at one another it creates a very toxic environment. I would say that the toxic environment hurts children. Sad that people can't be kind to one another and accept differences and celebrate differences. Sad that people feel the need to gang up on one another. Sad.

As a former BHS student and former student of Mr. Crowell's, I can confidently say he instills in his students a desire for knowledge, and not just the curriculum, the truth. That is something that is lacking in many BHS classrooms and as someone currently attending an Ivy League university I can confidently say that the curriculum taught in high school quickly dissolves although the pursuit of knowledge that was instilled in me by Crowell and a few others at BHS never does and has not just changed my experience in higher education, but in life. I would urge the administration to look beyond all the bureaucratic measures of learning (STAR, AP, Standard Curriculum, etc) that produce the statistics and acknowledge when and where true learning is happening. I know for a fact that those who pay EXTRA taxes (that fund all the staff at BHS) in Berkeley to ensure the school system is great care much more about the aforementioned then some sort of standardized curriculum as Berkeley has always been a place of alternative thought and tends to pride itself on being ahead of the times in more ways then one.

Thing to do if you are being put through the PAR process:
1) Get your own lawyer. Do NOT work with the union lawyer. They are not there to help you. There are lawyers that are taking on class action suits against districts and unions. If you can, join one of the class action suites. You probably won't make much money, but this is a much better route then going with the union.
2) Stop paying union dues. Your union hasn't looked out for you this far. They aren't going to look out for you now. You go through the long process of paperwork, but it is possible to stop paying. If you keep paying you are giving them authority to represent you, and they won't.
3) Realize that you did nothing to deserve this. Again, you did nothing to deserve this. Nobody deserves abuse. Nobody deserves to be bullied. Nobody deserves to be targeted. This happened because you spoke up against corruption.

This is a hot mess!!! It is time for students, parents, teachers and Dr. Evans to come up with some real and tangible solutions to this issue. We are not all going to agree but we are obliged on behalf of all children to resolve this expeditiously and as a community.

Having seen a lot of schools, I can tell you that if you have bad teachers, you almost always have a really bad principal. And if you have teachers divided, like Berkeley High does, you have a super bad principal. BPAR will not help this situation. Getting a new principal that inspires teachers and students rather than threatens them will be the fix.

Ben Sanoff, Timothy Zolezzi, Matt Laurel, Kate Rosen, Leslie Tebbe, Matthew Carton, David Borrelli, Alex Angell, Jose Colon, Madalyn Theodore, Anne Busacca-Ryan, Amanda Green, and Christa Rybcynski seem to have made a fulltime hobby to display sanctimonious, church lady like behavior. Their constant jabs at people and relentless need to put people down has negatively impacted the entire community. I really wish they would just stop. Everybody is different. There are a lot of people who don't think they are very good teachers. The problem is that the Rybcynski group has been empowered to take out anyone that it doesn't like. It really is elitism in action. Don't let the matching Obama shirts fool you. These people are all about privilege and power.

Let's try being kind to one another for a change. Let's try letting others have a voice once in a while.

The Machine is real in Bay Area School Districts. What people aren't addressing is that the union is just as much a part of The Machine as the corrupt people downtown. I take my hat off to Brian Crowell for taking on the corrupt union that didn't represent him. I am hearing about more and more teachers taking on the union for selling them out with PAR. If more teachers do, we will get rid of this oppressive PAR process and go back to a civilized work environment that doesn't turn teachers into prey for predatory principals and members of The Machine.
I have been a history teacher for 27 years. I have watched my friends and coworkers be taken down by the culture of retaliation and PAR. I have never seen anything as divisive and demoralizing and stigmatizing as PAR. Once a teacher has been assigned to PAR you might as well have stitched a Scarlett Letter or sewn an inverted triangle on his shirt - the teachers become marginalized, denigrated and treated poorly. I have seen good teachers fall to pieces during the process. No teacher is better for going through PAR. All the teachers I have known that were put through PAR were good teachers, but they had spoken out against corruption and The Machine. The Machine of corruption doesn't just hurt teachers. It models bullying and corruption. We really need to start speaking out against this oppressive PAR process and bully principals. PAR doesn't help our schools. PAR teaches bullying. The union needs to be held legally responsible for hurting members with this process. Stop The Machine.

It is a shame that neither admin nor the union would comment; having both sides of the story would have been helpful here. As a parent of children in the district I am concerned with what appear to be the racist overtones in this thread. Are there any parents of color commenting here? I hope so because there seems to be an undercurrent of entitlement and arrogance to these responses.

Targeting is a serious problem in Bay Area Schools. This culture of retaliation and vindictiveness has gotten out of control. Some people (Leland Yee included, but not the only one) in charge of the schools are corrupt. Employees/Teachers who point out corruption and try to do the right thing, get targeted (put through BPAR/PAR). It isn't just a problem for the targeted teacher. The current practice hurts everyone (including children). Like other people on this board, I have NEVER seen PAR or the evaluation system used appropriately. Sadly, most of the administrators and evaluators in school districts are politically motivated. I have always gotten outstanding evaluation. This isn't sour grapes. I'm writing this because, I feel bad for the entire situation. Of course their are some teachers who aren't good. But the witch hunt is out of control. Why are teachers the punching bags for all the country's problems? I would love to be free to speak about the misuse of funds that I believe is happening by my principal, but I can't. I would love to be able to speak up about things I feel are inappropriate, but I can't. I have to keep quiet, because I know what happens when a teacher gets targeted.

Rather you like Mr Crowell or not, you have to respect him for speaking out against the culture of PAR. I'm in a different district. When I watched my friends go through PAR and get very sick physically from the humiliation and extreme stress of PAR, they weren't allowed to talk about much of the abuse they were enduring. We could see the abuse. We knew the abuse was happening, but the process has a lot of secrecy built into it. Secrecy helped this sick practice continue to grow while good people didn't understand the abuse that was going on. My friends have all resigned from the district and they still aren't allowed to speak about the details of the abuse they endured. One of the major problems about the process is the particular people who become PAR coaches. I have never known one that wasn't a mean and nasty person, who just wanted to further his/her career, get extra pay, and stay out of the stressful classrooms. None of them I've met seem to care about supporting teachers or students. PAR coaches themselves are machines. Thank you Mr. Crowell for speaking out against PAR. Hopefully the union will be held accountable for doing this to its members. I'm hearing rumors of massive class actions suits being planned against the union for this. I even saw an add for it. Glad to know attorneys are learning about this and doing something to end this war on teachers. Good luck Mr. Crowell and all the others who have the courage to stand up to this.

This whole BPAR situation is really sad. Sadly, education has become so politically charged, there doesn't seem to be a lot of integrity left in the profession. While I myself have never gone through the process, I know a lot about it. I believe the BPAR process to be about targeting more then helping students. I would never tell anyone to send their child to school in BUSD or to work at BUSD. Knowing a little bit about Oakland and San Francisco Unified, I don't rank them very high for integrity either. It is a sad day, when many of the people in charge (administrators) have such large egos,and are more about politics then helping individual students. As a parent, I worry about the situation, but all I can do is help my children be the best people they can be, and move on. I don't have much faith in the current schools - BPAR or not. BPAR might have some validity had it been used differently. However, for the past 15 years it has been used to further corruption, so therefore I'm against it.

As Harrison suggests, there's far more to learn in life than what is found in a curriculum. Both our sons experienced teachers who wavered from curriculum to relay more about life and injustice. Our sons adored such teachers and learned far more than what was anticipated, yet these teachers experienced what could be referred to as stressful harassment by BUSD administration. As for the legitimacy of online student reviews, one can also find negative statements against excellent teachers due to subject difficulty.

The Person named Jake Turney ,who called himself a veteran teacher, is most likely not a teacher. Most teachers know that ratemyteacher.com is pure filth. Anybody can go on to it and use fowl language to say horrendous things about any teacher for any reason. If a teacher gives a well deserved bad grade, a parent or student can write what ever they want on there. Also, it should be noted, that the time when Mr. Crowell was missing a lot of school was during his BPAR time. That is pretty typical of people going through BPAR. When your being harassed , you don't tend to want to go to work. As a teacher who was close to the situation, I blame BPAR for Mr. Crowell deteriorating performance. He used to be a great teacher, but BPAR killed him and made him a shell of the person he once was. That is what it does to people. BPAR is barbaric and mean-spirited.